Solving San Diego’s housing crisis with an overhaul of city bureaucracy, expanding efforts to reduce homelessness and making the city a national leader on the environment are among Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s priorities for 2019.

Faulconer used his annual State of the City address on Tuesday to lay out those goals and several others, including efforts to ensure the city’s contractors reflect San Diego’s diversity and upgrading 300 dangerous intersections.

The boldest proposals in the mayor’s speech focused on housing, as he wants to eliminate building height limits in many neighborhoods, wipe out parking requirements and make it more profitable to build low-income housing.

The mayor also wants to streamline approvals for many projects, especially those including low-income housing, to prevent anti-growth residents and fearful City Council members from derailing ambitious proposals.

A divided San Diego City Council voted 6-3 this week to approve the first major housing project along the new Morena Boulevard trolley line despite concerns the project isn’t dense enough and includes no low-income units.

Council members in opposition said San Diego needs to demand all projects...

“The bureaucracy has been set up to empower anti-housing forces that delay or deny projects at every turn,” Faulconer said during the 34-minute speech in downtown’s Balboa Theatre.

“Obstructionists must never again be able to halt the housing that San Diego needs,” he said. “These changes represent a complete rethinking about how we deal with housing. We must change from a city that shouts ‘not in my back yard’ to one that proclaims ‘yes in my backyard.’”

The proposals to eliminate height limits and parking requirements would apply to properties within half a mile of an existing or planned trolley or bus line, which is roughly half the properties in the city, although height limits couldn’t be lifted in neighborhoods near the coast without approval from the state Coastal Commission.

Another key proposal is to allow developers to build projects as large as they want if they are willing to have a certain percentage of the units be for low-income residents or formerly homeless people.

Faulconer said it would be the most generous incentive in the state to build such housing for the formerly homeless, which typically includes on-site social services.

On homelessness, the mayor also proposed adding more safe parking lots for people living in cars, hiring housing specialists to work in the city’s bridge shelters and expanding a storage center where homeless people keep their belongings.

He also wants to hire outreach workers that would be sent to many neighborhoods outside of downtown to encourage more people to get off the streets and seek help.

In addition, the city’s new Housing Navigation Center, which will centralize homeless services in one location downtown, is scheduled to open this year after many months of preparation.

The mayor said he intends to fight harder against opposition to homeless solutions, especially when residents and neighborhood leaders reject shelters or housing projects for the homeless.

Clairemont is fast becoming a key battleground community in San Diego’s efforts to shrink its homelessness problem and solve its affordable housing crisis.

A proposed 52-unit complex for formerly homeless people caused an uproar last spring, prompting community leaders to mobilize and eventually...

“Some say they support more homeless services, they just want them somewhere else,” he said. “Some claim they want to support new solutions, then throw up roadblocks to derail progress. Some say we need to study the problem further, which just kicks the can down the road.”

Faulconer also called out county officials for allowing a reduction in the number of hospital beds devoted to the mentally ill, who have a high risk of becoming homeless.

“The city is taking a new approach,” the mayor said. “The state is stepping up. Now it is time for the county to do the same.”

The speech was Faulconer’s fifth State of the City address, but the first time the Republican mayor has delivered the address while facing a 6-3 Democratic supermajority on the City Council.

That supermajority will make it harder for the mayor to pass the legislation he is proposing. Every San Diego council member lists the housing crisis and homelessness as top priorities, but they might disagree with the mayor’s proposed solutions.

In his speech, Faulconer called for local civility and cooperation, in contrast to what he called divisiveness and political games at the federal level on immigration and other issues.

“As your mayor, I’m working to create a city that works for all of us,” said Faulconer, who spoke part of his speech in Spanish. “One that improves the lives of all residents in all neighborhoods. One where it doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican, Democrat or independent – because we’re all San Diegans.”

After the speech, Council President Georgette Gomez said she generally supports the mayor’s housing proposals.

"It sounded like something I could get behind, but I definitely need to waiting to see what it looks like in terms of the details,” she said. "Hopefully we can be partners in all of this."

Gomez said it’s crucial that easing regulations lead to housing that ordinary San Diegans can afford.

"We need to do much more to support the development of housing, but just by developing it doesn't mean we're going to solve the issues of affordability," she said.

The mayor also used his speech to address the proposed expansion of the city’s waterfront convention center, saying continues to support a citizen’s initiative to raise the local hotel tax rate to pay for the expansion, homeless programs and road repairs.

The mayor made no reference to a special election this year, indicating the initiative is likely to go on the ballot in either March or November 2020 instead.

On city’s stadium site in Mission Valley, the mayor vowed to negotiate an agreement with San Diego State that respects taxpayers and transforms “a dilapidated parking lot into San Diego’s next crown jewel.”

On the environment, Faulconer focused on his proposal unveiled last October to shift San Diego’s energy usage to 100 percent wind, solar and other renewable sources that don’t exacerbate climate change.

Called community choice energy or community choice aggregation, the program would allow city officials to take over responsibility for buying electricity on behalf of ratepayers, making decisions about whether to ink contracts with natural gas, solar, wind or other providers.

Faulconer said the city will invite the county and other cities in the region to participate in the process through a collaboration called a joint powers authority, which he plans to present to the City Council next month.

Faulconer promised to form a panel of the region’s top leaders to draw up concrete plans to connect the trolley to San Diego International Airport – an effort to reduce greenhouse gases and fight climate change.

“The trolley stops frustratingly short of Lindbergh Field,” he said. “You can wave at the airport as you pass by on the trolley – and that’s about it. We can do better.”

On city contractors, the mayor promised a citywide review to see if the companies that do business with the city reflect its rich diversity.

On dangerous intersections, Faulconer said he will unveil plans for upgrades to 300 intersections aimed at making them safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.